Posted on February 22, 2006 by Steve
Ocala.com, February 18th, 2006
Last year America spent 57 percent more than it earned on world
markets. That is, our imports were 57 percent larger than our exports.
How did we manage to live so far beyond our means? By running up debts
to Japan, China and Middle Eastern oil producers. We’re as addicted to
imported money as we are to imported oil.
Sometimes large-scale foreign borrowing makes sense. In the 19th
century the United States borrowed vast sums from Europe, using the
funds to build railroads and other industrial infrastructure. That
debt-financed wave of investment left America stronger, not weaker.
But this time our overseas borrowing isn’t financing an investment
boom: Adjusted for the size of the economy, business investment is
actually low by historical standards. Instead, we’re using borrowed
money to build houses, buy consumer goods and, of course, finance the
federal budget deficit.
Read more…
Posted on February 22, 2006 by Steve
The New York Times, February 20th, 2006
ANDERSON, Ind., Feb. 16 — General Motors once had so many plants here that it had to stagger their schedules
so that the streets would not be clogged with traffic when the workday ended. At
the city’s peak, 35 years ago, one of every three people in Anderson worked for
G.M.
Now there is not a single G.M. plant left, and just two parts plants that
G.M. once owned still survive. Anderson, about 50 miles northeast of
Indianapolis, had 70,000 people in 1970 and now has fewer than 58,000.
But in many ways, Anderson is still just as dependent on G.M. as it once was.
Only now, rather than being dependent on General Motors, the corporation, it is
dependent on General Motors, the welfare state.
The company’s generous medical plans, prescription drug coverage, dental care
and pension checks are a lifeline for the 10,000 G.M. retirees and an untold
number of surviving spouses and other family members who still live in the
Anderson area.
Read more…
Posted on February 17, 2006 by Steve
Frediemac.com, February 9th, 2006
Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE) today released the results of its Primary
Mortgage Market SurveySM (PMMSSM) in which the 30-year fixed-rate
mortgage (FRM) averaged 6.24 percent, with an average 0.6 point, for
the week ending February 9, 2006, up from last week’s average of 6.23
percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 5.57
percent.
The average for the 15-year FRM this week is 5.83 percent, with an
average 0.6 point, up from last week’s average of 5.81 percent. A
year ago, the 15-year FRM averaged 5.10 percent.
Five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs)
averaged 5.89 percent this week, with an average 0.7 point, up from
last week when it averaged 5.87 percent. A year ago, the
five-year ARM averaged 4.99 percent.
Read more…
Posted on February 17, 2006 by Steve
SFGate.com, February 12th, 2006
When it comes to shopping for a home mortgage, many people are letting the
mouse do the walking, just as they do for books, music and other products.
Consequently, most brick-and-mortar lenders now have Web sites touting their
products and rates. Some lenders operate almost exclusively online, using the
Web, e-mail and telephone to serve clients.
It’s hard to beat the convenience of doing business online: no worries about
what time it is or what you’re wearing, no parking hassles, no long lines.
Bruce Hampton of Livermore, a retail executive for Men’s Wearhouse, began his
online search for a mortgage last fall when he learned he would be transferred
to the Dallas-Fort Worth area early this year.
He looked at several sites to see how the process works and to compare rates,
but some sites “were cumbersome, overly complex or redundant,” he said. He also
talked with some Texas lenders, but they weren’t competitive. He decided on
E-Loan, based in Pleasanton, because it’s a national lender and “it was quick,
simple and easy.”
Read more…
Posted on February 17, 2006 by Steve
SFGate.com, February 12th, 2006
Whether you’re a first-time home buyer, an investor, vacation property buyer,
historic preservation buff — or even if you are looking for a boat to convert
into a live-aboard residence — you are not shopping the market to the max
unless you check out the federal government’s best real estate resources: the
combined property disposition program inventories of 10 agencies, all rolled
into one online access point.
Want to buy a cabin in the woods near Lake Huron? Center-city row houses for
rehab from Baltimore to Los Angeles? Raw land in Arizona, a lighthouse in the
Atlantic, a condo in Puerto Rico, a development site in the U.S. Virgin Islands?
The offerings change daily, the realty sales hype is refreshingly restrained,
and the caveats plentiful when you browse through the properties available from
the Internal Revenue Service, Bureau of Customs and Border Protection,
Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Veterans Affairs,
Small Business Administration, U.S. Marshals Service, U.S Army Corps of
Engineers and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Each of these agencies ends up
with unwanted real estate through its own specialized activities. HUD, VA, SBA
and the Agriculture Department foreclose on some of the properties they insure
or finance. Customs, the IRS and U.S. Marshals Service seize properties for
nonpayment of taxes or criminal violations and then sell them on the open market.
Read more…
Posted on February 17, 2006 by Steve
Bankrate.com, October 20th, 2005
Millions of people retire every year, and they
have to live somewhere. The question for many is: Where?
Retirees have a lot of options. They can stay in
the current home, move to a more-suitable dwelling nearby, move far away or even
live a nomadic life. There is no such thing as a perfect place to live in
retirement, but there’s a method to finding a good match. Here are four pieces
of advice.
1. Realize that your needs might
change
Just as people switch careers during their
working lives, they often go through more than one phase of retirement, says
Andrew Schiller, founder of NeighborhoodScout, a search engine that helps people figure
out where to relocate. He says a 62-year-old and an 85-year-old have different
sets of needs, “and because of that, this isn’t just a decision that people make
once — and each time, their criteria are a little different.”
Read more…
Posted on February 10, 2006 by Steve
As the Population Ages, Brokers Discover A New Specialty
The New York Times, June 19th, 2005
WENDY FURTH, a veteran broker from Southern California, had
probably assisted hundreds of clients with real estate transactions
over the years. But when it came to helping her own elderly parents
relocate and dealing with the emotional turmoil that ensued, she felt
ill-equipped.
”They wanted to move, but they agonized over it;
my father became physically ill,” Ms. Furth said. ”It took a lot of
time for them to get up the energy and enthusiasm and courage after
living in a property that they had bought brand new back in 1951.”
Her
parents eventually settled into a retirement community near the house
they sold in the San Francisco area. But their experience some eight
years ago left Ms. Furth wondering how many other aging homeowners
faced a similar predicament: needing to sell a longtime family
residence, perhaps for health or financial reasons, but finding
themselves near-neophytes in an ever-changing real estate market.
”They’re very much like first-time buyers,” said Ms. Furth, an agent
for ReMax Olson & Associates in Northridge, Calif., who, because of
her parents’ dealings, has decided to cater to seniors and those
approaching retirement.
Read more…
Posted on February 10, 2006 by Steve
For a lucky few, a wish come true.
The New York Times, February 9th, 2006
ALONE in his row house on Beacon Hill, with four precipitous flights
of stairs and icy cobblestones outside the front door, John Sears, 75,
still managed to look after himself after he was hit by a taxicab and
left with a broken knee.
That is because Mr. Sears was one
phone call away from everything he needed to remain in his home, the
goal of more than 80 percent of the nation’s elderly as they confront
advancing age, according to consistent polls.
Mr. Sears
required both practical assistance and peace of mind: Transportation to
and from the hospital. An advocate with him at medical appointments.
Home-delivered meals from favorite restaurants. Someone at his side as
he hobbled to the bank and the barber. Someone else to install grab
bars in his bathroom. A way to summon help in an emergency. People to
look in on him.
All these services were organized for Mr. Sears
by Beacon Hill Village, an innovative nonprofit organization created by
and for local residents determined to grow old in familiar
surroundings, and to make that possible for others. Community-based
models for aging in place designed by the people who use them are the
wave of the future, experts say, an alternative to nursing homes and
assisted living centers run by large service providers.
Read more…
Posted on February 8, 2006 by Steve
The Kansas City Star, January 15th, 2006
Q. In 1990 and 1991, as a grandparent, I bought Series EE
U.S. savings bonds in the father’s name with his daughter as
beneficiary. The program intent was that the paid-up bond would be used
for tuition with no taxes on the interest. Now I have gone to the
college finance office, and they know nothing about such program. They
say the father will have to cash the bonds and then they will take the
money. I need to know what paperwork needs to be done to prevent a tax
liability.
A. The interest on the
savings bonds is not taxable when the proceeds are used for qualified
higher education expenses and certain requirements are met.
Read more…
Posted on February 8, 2006 by Steve
Workers, employers, taxpayers, governments. Meet the key players in the coming battle.
CNN, January 13th, 2006
NEW YORK (FORTUNE) – Some of the nastiest conflicts in America’s
future have recently begun to reveal themselves. Let’s call them,
broadly, the pension wars.
They will be fought on a wide range of battlefields, involving not just
workers and their employers but also governments at all levels,
regulators, accountants and taxpayers. And these wars will be bitter –
because the combatants will be desperate.
A hint of what’s to come could be seen in the New York City transit
strike. Most of America didn’t notice exactly what sparked the first
such strike in 25 years, costing businesses, individuals and the city
hundreds of millions of dollars. The answer is pensions. The transit
authority and the workers were agreed on virtually everything except
how much new employees would contribute toward their pensions–6
percent of wages vs. 2 percent — and neither side felt it could give
an inch on that.
The reasons illustrate the larger problem. The transit authority, like
many private and public employers, is watching its pension costs rocket
as longer-living retirees increase in number. That burden will become
unbearable. On the other side, union members are watching employers
nationwide dumping or cutting their pensions just as Social Security
starts to look shaky. They figure retirement security is the one thing
they cannot sacrifice. Result: war.
Read more…
